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Eniola: A Life Told Twice, a weekly, serialized story. Expect faith, hard choices, culture, and quiet resilience. New episode every [Friday by 1PM].

There will be guest posts/reflections. Support the contractors via https://paystack.shop/pay/eniolaseries. We met at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria as course-mates in the department of Psychology. Chukwuebuka is from a family of four (All boys) and Oluwafunmilayo is the baby of the house and also from a family of four (3 boys and 1 girl). We became the Ebukas and we are in an inspiring journey, please come along with us...

21/11/2025

WEEK 13: Homecoming and a Market Face

The road back to Mgbidi felt like a ribbon pulled taut with memory: red earth, the lean cadence of motorbikes, the way roadside cassava smoke curls into sky. He stepped off the bus with his small bag and the wet, honest wind of the town hitting him like an answer. Markets are small theatres where everyone knows what everyone else cannot say; he moved through the stalls like a stranger learning his lines.

Mama Nkechi’s stall sat where it always had bright wrappers, a battered tin for kola nuts, her face folded into a hundred stories. She saw him before he saw her, and when their eyes met she laughed with the kind of relief that sounds like prayer. Her hands did not wait: she folded him into a quick hug and pressed something into his palm -a thin, creased letter with his mother’s handwriting since she was already waiting for him.

“Your brother is waiting,” she said, voice low. “He left his market table just now. Come.”

He found his elder brother by the yam stand, taller in the way someone grows when they have to hold a family steady. There was a line at the corner of his mouth Eniola hadn’t noticed before a history of hard days. They greeted with a silence that meant more than words.

When Eniola slid the letter open, the first line pulled him like a tide: “Be careful with what men call inheritance. Some doors close with a bargain.”

NEXT WEEK: Why his mother sent that note and the papers his brother refuses to show.

14/11/2025

WEEK 12: A Letter Folded Like a Question

The slip of paper had no flourish, only a smudge of hurried ink and an address he knew like the groove of an old song. Eniola read it three times under the shop’s humming light: “Your mother needs you. Come home. Ask for Mama Nkechi. Don’t travel alone.” No signature, no explanation only that quiet command.

For a moment the shop evaporated: the bell, the printers, the ledger-voiced Mr. O. Memory arrived like weather, his mother’s hands, the way she folded prayer into planning, the steadiness that had carried him through lost money and uncertain jobs. The cheap room, the gradual dignity of small work, the side smiles of neighbours all pressed in at once.

Work would mean money at the end of the week. Home would mean a journey with no promise beyond the journey itself. He thought of the thin mattress and the young woman who collected pages each night and of Ayomide’s folded note that had once been a map. He thought of his mother’s quiet way of making decisions -prayer first, then phone calls and felt both panic and a strange, familiar steadiness.

He slid the letter into his pocket and stood. Mr. O looked up, the shop’s light catching the wire-frame glasses. “Everything all right?” he asked.

Emi ola, Eniola hesitated. The question had the shape of a door. He could leave now and risk the plan; or leave later and risk the debt of absence. He breathed in, tasted frying oil and ledger dust, and stepped out into the street.

NEXT WEEK: The road back to Mgbidi and the face that greets him at the market square.

07/11/2025

WEEK 11: The Line That Held

The next afternoon the owner’s son moved with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to doors opening for him. He lingered at the counter more than business required, his smile a little too hopeful, his questions wrapped in the polite tone of a man testing the shape of a boundary.

“You were blunt last night,” he said, leaning on the worn wood. “Not everyone can afford to be proud.” The words were meant to unsettle a reminder of scarcity dressed as advice. Timmy kept her hands busy folding a receipt, eyes steady but careful. Eniola felt his chest tighten as if the shop had shrunk.

He could have answered with bravado; he could have counted the small debts that shadowed him. Instead, he cleared a space for Timmy to speak, for her to choose. She did not flinch. “I can work my own hours,” she said. “I won’t be traded.” The son laughed softly, a sound that did not reach his eyes, and walked out as if dismissed.

After he left, Mr. O gave Eniola a look that was equal parts appraisal and relief. “You did good,” he said quietly. “Keep the shop honest.” The praise warmed like a small coin in Eniola’s palm.

That evening, as the lamps blinked on and the street settled, someone knocked at the shop door. A letter, folded and blunt, was slipped under the mat -no name, just one line scrawled across the top: "We need to TALK".

NEXT WEEK: Who sent the note and why it brings the past walking back into the shop.

31/10/2025

WEEK 10: The Offer That Came With a Price

The owner’s son wore an easy smile that made people hand him small things without thinking: keys, chairs, grudges. That night, as Samtop emptied and the bell ticked the last customer out, he stayed behind under the harsh desk lamp and watched Eniola fold cables like careful fingers fold letters.

“Your friend Timmy is bright,” he said casually, as if delivering a compliment had no underside. He talked about patrons and tutoring leads, about introductions he could make if she were… available at the right times. His sentences were soft but the meaning sat heavy between them. He spoke of favours that could be exchanged for better hours, small cash, a promise of work that might finally let Eniola breathe.

Eniola felt the room tilt. There was the offer and alongside it the clear, unspoken contract: take it, and life would be easier for a while; refuse it, and convenience would turn to inconvenience. He thought of Timmy’s quiet laugh, of the old canvas bag, of the way she trusted small things. He thought of the mattress that folded his back into someone who could not afford to be choosy.

He did not answer immediately. Answers in cheap rooms and small shops sometimes echo louder than intended. The son smiled again and left as if nothing had happened.

When the door closed, Timmy’s eyes were careful. “Is he… serious?” she asked. Eniola slid a note across the counter, four words, blunt, decided: "Not on my watch".

NEXT WEEK: The son’s response and whether a single note can hold a line.

24/10/2025

WEEK 9: The Evening That Stayed

She came for pages at first -exam questions, a thesis printout, the kind of small, important things people ask cities to hold for them. Her name was Timmy, a slim woman with a laugh that came out like a surprise; she carried an old canvas bag and a careful way of looking at things, as if she were measuring whether the world would keep its promises.

At Samtop she watched while Eniola coaxed life back into printers and coaxed clients into calm. Sometimes she asked about fonts; sometimes she lingered to learn how to save a scanned image. It was perfectly ordinary, the kind of proximity that felt like friendship building itself by the day: shared tea at closing, a joke about whose charger belonged to whom, a walk that lasted until the streetlights blinked awake.

One evening they walked past the riverbend, and she told him quietly, without preamble that she lived with her grandmother and worked part-time tutoring. He said nothing dramatic; he simply listened, which felt, in itself, like an offering. In the dark, under paper-and-plastic streetlamps, the conversation folded into something softer like trust though not yet named.

But not all small things stay small. As they turned away from the river, a shadow detached itself from a doorway: the owner’s son, stepping into the hum of the street. He smiled too easily, and his eyes took in Timmy as if measuring an ambition.

NEXT WEEK: The owner’s son makes an offer and Eniola discovers some doors require more than good intentions to close.

17/10/2025

WEEK 8: A Cheap Room and a New Rhythm

The room was all slatted light and a thin mattress that remembered other bodies. Rent was paid in gestures two weeks in advance, a small handshake, a lady who said she’d leave the key under the mat and the address smelled of frying oil and old newspapers. It was the kind of place that asked nothing and therefore asked everything: could a man rebuild himself on thrift and quiet hours?

The note from Ayomide led him to a small shop with a hand-painted sign: "Samtop Computers". The bell over the door was an office bell borrowed from a different century. Mr. O, a compact man with wire-frame glasses and a voice like a ledger, didn’t ask about pedigree or gossip. He asked, instead, if Eniola could type, arrange files, and stay past closing when clients needed ID cards or quick repairs. “We pay little,” he said, as if confessing. “But we pay. And we keep you fed with work.”

Work settled into a beat: mornings learning the machines, afternoons doing menial jobs that paid a few naira, evenings returning to a room that creaked with other people’s stories. There were moments of small dignity, an elderly woman’s gratitude when her printer worked again, a student’s relief at a printed CV and they stacked up like coins.

On his third week, a young woman who came every evening for printing paused to watch him troubleshoot a stubborn laptop. She smiled as if she had been waiting for the moment to speak.

NEXT WEEK: The woman who kept coming back and the reason Eniola began to look forward to closing time.

10/10/2025

WEEK 7: The Door That Would Not Hold

The principal’s voice was small as a coin and hard as rust. He did not shout; he needn’t. He listed the town’s gossip like terms in a contract and told Eniola, without ceremony, that the firm could no longer employ someone who “caused trouble.” There was no accusation worth arguing against, only a curt dismissal that folded the day into a single, slow motion decision: go.

Eni-ibi became Eniola’s name when the world felt less careful stepped out into a heat that felt sharper than the office lights. The door clicked behind him with an ordinary finality. People on the street looked through him the way a window looks through rain. He had a small bag, a narrower wallet, and a head full of schedules he’d never made. Somewhere beneath the bruised pride there was, insistently, a practical thought: where to sleep, what to eat, what to do tomorrow.

Ayomide found him on the pavement and handed him a thin envelope no words, just a flat look that held both apology and a map. Inside was a note with an address and two lines: "Come tomorrow. Ask for Mr. O. He needs a hand." It was not rescue. It was a door Olurun.

He folded the note and, that feeling surface again like being the first time since the money vanished, felt the shape of a choice that included going on.

NEXT WEEK: The cheap room he finds, and another man that hires him again on the spot.

03/10/2025

WEEK 6: The Market Rumour

King's Market days at Ilesha were loud with life: cassava sellers shouted, motorbike horns stitched the lanes, and gossip moved faster than cash. That morning Eniola stopped for plantain and heard his name like a stone thrown into the town pond, first whispered at a stall, then repeated with added colour by a woman stacking tomatoes. The rumour had weight: a young man sleeping in a lawyer’s house; a daughter who kept company with a worker. In minutes it was not just a story as became a verdict.

At the office the atmosphere changed before he arrived. The principal’s smile was smaller, his words clipped. “People talk,” he said, as if that explained everything. Then, in a voice shaped to leave no room for answer, he asked whether Eniola respected boundaries. The question was both a test and a trap. Eniola answered carefully, because every answer could be read as confession or defiance.

By noon the principal’s wife had cornered Ayomide near the photocopier, and the kitchen stepped into the daylight. The word “respect” moved around the house like a hunting dog, sniffing for evidence. Eniola noticed the way colleagues now averted their eyes; a job that had been a door now felt more like a corridor with too many locks.

That evening he packed a small bag. He told himself it was prudence. The town, however, had already decided on a different word.

NEXT WEEK: The confrontation that forced him out and the choice he made at the doorstep.

26/09/2025

WEEK 5: A Couch, a Key, and Quiet Compromises

That night the office felt smaller than it had in daylight, the hum of fluorescent lights had thinned into a steady, low companion. Eniola had planned to catch the last bus home, but the principal’s voice had made the decision for him: stay the night, he’d said, as if the offer were a favour rather than a choice. Ayomide’s house was close by, he’d added, and she wouldn’t mind.

So he walked across the quiet town and found himself at a gate that opened like a question. Ayomide’s mother greeted him with the easy hospitality of someone who’d hosted strangers before; Ayomide disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a plate, a towel, and a small, folded towel that smelled faintly of lavender. The couch was narrow, the kind that creaked in the middle, and when he lay there he felt both grateful and exposed -grateful for shelter, exposed by the smallness of safety that felt transactional.

Ayomide moved around with a practical grace, small kindnesses meted in tea and conversation. They spoke of trivial things: a class she’d just finished, a brother she missed, a joke about town politics. There were pauses that felt like doors opening and closing. He told himself he was careful; he told himself he owed nothing but gratitude. Yet gratitude, in the night, sometimes reads like availability.

Back in the office, the principal’s words echoed with a new weight. “Stay off my daughter,” he had said. Eniola could not tell if the words were meant to warn or possess. He was painfully aware of the optics: a young man, a lawyer’s daughter, a borrowed couch. Stories start in small places, and he knew how quickly small places turned into gossip.

As sleep thinned, a sound from the street a shouted name, a sudden footstep snapped the night. Ayomide’s hand found his on the couch, brief and steady. “Go to sleep,” she said softly, as if that could keep everything at bay.

NEXT WEEK: A rumour starts in the market and the principal’s temper finds a way into the daylight.

19/09/2025

WEEK 4: The Door That Opened Into a Chamber

The law office smelled faintly of legal pads and boiled coffee. Eniola stepped into that smell and into a room that ran on habit neat files, the soft click of a typewriter, a principal who wore cufflinks like little promises. The interview lasted ten minutes: show me what you can do, he said, and Eniola showed him a folder of lesson notes, a neat sample of a flyer and a confident answer about deadlines. The job was offered the same day.

Work settled around him like a new coat. He began as a computer operator setting up documents, typing pleadings, running the modest photocopier but within weeks he was doing more: taking calls, arranging meetings, keeping the principal’s calendar. He was careful, efficient, and the firm liked that. For the first time in a long while, money felt steady and the future less like a rumour.

But every steady thing has its undercurrent. The principal moved through the office with a private orbit: a practiced smile, a way of congratulating people that lingered too long. There was talk -hushed, then louder of a woman who met him outside work: a policewoman, they said, with a quiet authority. His wife’s name threaded through gossip. Once, on a slow afternoon, the principal caught Eniola by the shoulder and said, smiling without warmth, “Stay off my daughter.” It sounded almost like advice, and almost like a threat.

Eniola kept his head down. The job was a door necessary, useful but doors, he was learning, sometimes open into rooms he did not control.

NEXT WEEK: The first time he crashed at Ayomide’s house and why staying there would change everything.

12/09/2025

WEEK 3: The Decision After the Bell

When the final bell came, Eniola felt both emptied and strangely awake. The scrap of paper had been folded small just one word in Ayomide’s careful handwriting: Breathe. He’d laughed once, inwardly, and let the laugh be the steadying thing it needed to be. He finished the paper, turned in his script, and walked out into the wash of late sun that made the courtyard look like a burnished page.

Ayomide waited by the gate as if she’d been there the whole time. She didn’t ask about the exam. She handed him a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a note with an address to a law office in town and the name of a man who sometimes needed a computer operator. “Come tomorrow,” she said. “He’s looking for someone who knows desktop publishing.” Her voice was even, practical; the kind that could hold good news without making it louder than it needed to be.

For the first time since the money vanished, a tiny plan formed in Eniola’s hands not a grand rescue, but a tool he could use: work, pay, a place to sleep that wasn’t a borrowed sofa. He ate slowly, watching students spill into scooters and buses, and felt something like permission to keep going.

That permission came with a quiet warning he didn’t yet understand: the job would offer him a doorway, but every doorway had a house on the other side and some houses kept secrets.

NEXT WEEK: The law office interview and the door Eniola opened that did not close behind him.

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